“No.” I raised a finger. “Just as long as you don’t slit my throat.”
She laughed, turned the chair, moving me closer to the wall, and leaned my head back. She laid the towel across my chest and one shoulder and slowly worked the suds into my beard. Given that I had not shaved in about two months, this took a while. Once lathered, she slowly worked the razor down my face. Then my neck. Then, she lathered my face again, shaving closer. She did it a third and final time. When finished, she stepped back and I toweled off the soap. She said, “Well, let me look.”
I did.
She stared. Comparing me to my picture. Her head angled. Tilted like a dog. Finally, a nod. “Better. More Robert Redford. Less Larry the Cable Guy.”
I stood. “Thanks.”
She half bowed, said nothing, and began rinsing scissors, comb, and mug. I policed the floor, getting all the hair, then walked to the door. “See you tomorrow. Or today, rather.”
She nodded, handed me her key. “I’ve been known to oversleep. If I don’t answer by noon—”
I placed her key alongside mine in my pocket. “Okay.”
I returned to my bed, turned on the TV, and flipped channels until I found her on the screen. She was laughing and riding a motorcycle through Italy. I pulled out my journal and scribbled a few notes. Several pages and one or two channels later, I drifted off to the sound of her singing a duet and playing the piano.
I didn’t know she played the piano.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I knocked but she didn’t answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I used her key, pushed open the door, and found her spread across the bed like a snow angel, a scarf over her eyes, some sort of plugs in her ears. I shook her toe.
She stirred, pulled the scarf off her face, and said, “What time is it?”
“Almost four.”
“P.m.?”
I nodded.
She wrestled herself out of the sheets, shading her eyes against the sunlight coming around the shades.
“Obviously, you’re not a morning person.”
She flopped back down on the sheets. “Not when I go to sleep with the sun coming up.”
I laughed. “See you at the café.”
“Let me get a shower.”
An hour later, a third person appeared—a perfect match to her passport photo with no similarity to Katie Quinn. This was Isabella Desouches. A redheaded professional. CoverGirl hair to her shoulders. Notepad in tow. Black, wire-rimmed glasses. Matching suit-waist jacket and slim, tailored pants. Tasteful but low-cut silk blouse with lace trim. Black high heels. Short fast steps. The whole getup said, “I’m in a hurry and when I want your opinion I’ll ask.”
Isabella sat down, eyed the waiter, and tapped her juice glass. I leaned forward. “How many different people are you?”
A single shake. Half a smile. “Only as many as I need.”
“Need? Isn’t one enough?”
“If I always used the same disguise, someone could figure it out. I can’t afford to risk that, especially now.” She eyed me. “You have a favorite?”
I laughed. “I’m not falling for that. Not a chance. Where’d you get the clothes?”
“First-floor boutique.”
“You shop quickly.”
“Knew what I wanted.” She caught me rubbing my chin and the sides of my face. “You missing something?”
I smiled.
After juice and two cups of coffee, we walked to the valet stand, where Steady was just pulling in with my truck. To complete her act, Katie stood off to one side. An executive, a businesswoman, sharing a vehicle and little more.
Something in me didn’t like it.
A young, half-dressed mother, smacking gum in the ear of the person on the other end of the phone, exited the hotel and pushed a stroller between us. The valet phoned a cab. Isabella, hidden behind designer shades, made no sign of noticing either the mother or the baby. Wanting attention, the baby plucked out her pacifier and threw it at Isabella. It hit and slid down her new pants, leaving a glistening trail of slobber, and came to rest on the toe of her shoe. Oblivious, the mother grew more animated in her retelling of last night’s events. Fighting its straps, the baby reached across the space but fell a few feet short. Out of the corner of her eye, Isabella glanced at the mother, then the baby—then the pacifier. A long pause. Unnoticed, she stooped, slowly lifted the passy, and knelt next to the stroller, playfully tapping the kid’s nose and then inserting it into the kid’s snot-smeared mouth. The baby laughed, kicked its feet, and reached for her. Katie straightened her index finger and the kid wrapped four fingers around it. I watched without comment. A second later, she stood and her right hand came up beneath her glasses and patted the makeup below her right eye.
We climbed in my truck and Steady drove to the airport. He was chatty. We were not. I had one thought. Okay, two. Getting into France and past the customs people. And then getting back into the U.S. I didn’t fear handcuffs and criminal accusation. It was something worse. Loss of anonymity. I’d worked hard to disappear and didn’t want to sacrifice the life I’d come to live for the whimsical fancy of an actress trying to find something she’d lost.
And yet, I was sitting in my truck.
Steady kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He was smirking.
We parked at the private airport not far from Miami International and began walking to the plane. Katie kissed Steady on the cheek and went ahead. He tugged on my arm to stop me. I pulled my Costas down over my eyes. I said, “You sure you don’t want to go?”
“No. Last time I was there, angry people were shooting at me. I’ll pass.”
He paused, squeezed my arm, and pulled within inches of my ear. Spittle in the corner of his mouth. His breath smelled of pipe smoke. “I told you I’d cut out your gangrene.”
I nodded.
He glanced at the plane, then me. “The instruments needed can take many forms. Saw, scalpel…” I turned to walk away. He didn’t let go. “The key…” He set my glasses up on my head. “Is sitting still while the medical professionals cut out the wound. And…” He shook his head. Sucked through his teeth. “You’ve got to let them get all of it. That means they’ve got to cut deep, into the stuff that’s still living.” He let go. Rested on his cane. “Peter”—it’d been a long time since he’d called me by my real name—“you’re one of the more gifted human beings I’ve ever met. Maybe, the most.” Another glance at the plane. “And I’ve met some very gifted people.” He watched her climb the steps. “There are three of her and I’m not talking about the disguises. I’m talking about her. There’s the one she gives the adoring public. The one she gives her friends. And the one she gives to no one.” He shook his head. “I’ve known her more than twenty years and only met the first two.” He looked up at me. “Find the third.”
He let me go and I walked to the plane. As I began climbing the first step, he hollered from behind me, laughter in his voice. “Don’t let her get you on a scooter in Paris. Don’t go to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night. Drink wine at every meal. Anything from Saint-Émilion is good. If you go to Candes-Saint-Martin, check out the underside of the fifth pew from the front. And no matter what you do, don’t by any means—” I climbed inside and the flight attendant shut the door behind me.
Katie buckled, leaned across the aisle, and waved at him out the window. She said, “You get the feeling he’s been planning this?”
“Yeah. And for a lot longer than you have.”
I glanced around at our camel-colored, plush leather surroundings and sniffed twice audibly through my nose. “You just never get used to that new-plane smell, do you?”
She laughed.
Using the funds at his disposal, and not having to answer to anyone, Steady had chartered a Gulfstream Jet that could cross the ocean.
Katie’s papers said she was a high-end antiques buyer from the States. She made monthly, or bimonthly, visits to Europe to acquire inventory. A pretty good cover. It allowed
her to deal in the world in which she was accustomed without being known. Clever.
Out the window, Miami grew distant. Smaller. As did the Ten Thousand Islands, the Glades, and the invisible world I’d carved inside. We sat in the quiet of thirty-nine thousand feet. Sliding through the air at a little over six hundred miles an hour. I thought about this fragile woman—the fingers of her left hand tapped the armrest, the others tapped her front teeth. I hardly knew her and yet I had agreed to fly to France with her. Why? Really? What was I really doing on this plane? I thought about what might await us and about Steady’s words. About the fifth pew at Candes-Saint-Martin—whatever and wherever that was. About the many faces of Katie Quinn and his challenge to “find the third.” Finally, I thought about his offer to me.
To cut out my gangrene.
I tried to shake it off, but the twitch in my side told me I might be too late. The discomfort grew. Below us, water ran to the edges of the earth. The only thing missing was a headstone.
I’d been running a long time. Something I was good at, comfortable with, and could keep doing for a lot longer. But the moment I’d stepped onto this plane, that’d changed. Clarity set in. In buckling my seatbelt, I’d given up control. Hand off the throttle. If I stayed with her, I became the puppet and Steady controlled the strings. What would happen when Steady the surgeon methodically picked his way around the wound, passing through the scars I used to protect me, and the scalpel cut into the stuff that was still living? With the wound laid bare, I’d have to deal with what it hid.
And, what I’d buried.
PART TWO
Summers and winters scattered like splinters and four or five years slipped away.
—Jimmy Buffett, “He Went to Paris”
I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right then, I’ll go to hell.”
—The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We landed, taxied, and before I had time to get nervous, customs agents boarded the plane and asked for our passports—in English. That’s when an amazing thing happened. Isabella Desouches opened her mouth and spoke the most beautiful language I’d ever heard. And while I’m no linguist, she spoke it like she’d done it before. The French language rolled off her tongue like it’d been born there. In seconds, they were feeding out of her palms. Jibbering and jabbering, using their hands almost as much as their mouths. They barely glanced at my papers, more intent on the little dark Cindy Crawford mole on the corner of her mouth and the moist spray of perspiration just above her blouse’s neckline. They stamped our passports, and wished us well on our way. The younger of the two slipped Katie a piece of paper with a phone number on it. She read it and shook her head. “French men. Predictable.”
We walked through the private wing of the airport. Getting here had been a nonevent. My blood pressure returned to a normal level. I spoke without looking behind me. “Is it always that easy?”
“Yep.”
Using her personal trainer–toned legs, and ridiculously high heels, she hailed a cab, said something to the driver, then sat back, patted me on the thigh, and said, “You can breathe now.” The cabdriver was adjusting his rearview mirror to see down her blouse but she didn’t give him the pleasure.
The drive into Paris took about twenty minutes, as traffic was thin. The Eiffel Tower was the first landmark to come into view. Then the Arc de Triomphe. We routed around the arc and down the Champs-Élysées. Katie stared out the window, melting into the city. Or, maybe letting it melt into her. Just beyond a Nespresso store, the driver turned left, drove two blocks, circled right, zigzagged through an area of restaurants and hotels, and dropped us in front of a bakery on a street marked mostly by storefronts covered with rolling garage doors. She paid the driver, walked into the bakery, ordered, paid, and was biting into a croissant by the time I walked in. The croissant, nearly the size of a football, was steaming, as it had just come out of the oven, and flakes were dripping off the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were closed and she was mumbling something about how she loved Paris. I sat and the lady delivered two really small coffees. Katie slid a croissant in front of me.
“Try it.”
I did.
It might have been the best thing I’d ever put in my mouth. The inside was filled with some sort of chocolate. My surprise showed. She sipped, took another bite, and lifted her eyebrows. “Welcome to Paris.”
The window to my left gave us a view of city life in Paris. People walking to and from work, shopping, or home. Dogs on leashes. Hundreds of motorbikes. The smallest cars I’d ever seen stuffed to the brims with groceries and sofas and steaming baguettes. Women smoking. Men watching women smoke. Pigeons everywhere. Buses with Katie’s picture plastered along one side. Kids wearing all black and drinking beer on the sidewalk. Old men dressed in sport coats and vests with Windsor-knotted ties and tweed hats, newspapers tucked under their arms.
A couple of things struck me. Paris was dirty. The buildings, streets, everything looked like it had been blown with exhaust or a brown spray. The street was littered with trash, most everybody had a small, fashionable dog, and dog feces dotted the sidewalk. Also, a lot of people smoked. Much more than in the States. While I was observing this, a man with a small Jack Russell walked in, ordered a coffee, and then sat with the dog on his lap, feeding him small pieces of a baguette.
She said, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I miss my boat.”
She dropped a tip on the table. “Come on.” We walked out, she checked her watch, tilted her head side to side, and said, “You in a hurry?”
“Lady, I’m with you. I have no idea where we’re going, why we’re here, or when we’re returning. So, no, I’m not really in a hurry.”
She turned laughing, reached in her purse, and slid on her glasses. “Follow me.” We walked a block, turned a corner up a tight alley, and she stopped at the third garage door we came to. She fingered the combination lock, slid the lock sideways then kicked the door up revealing a garage of sorts. A car, several scooters, and a plethora of helmets closest to us, and then a rack of hanging clothes, stacks of faded jeans, piles of shoes, and two comfortable chairs. A sink, toilet, and shower filled one corner. She grabbed two keys out of a box on the wall, tossed one at me, and said, “Pick a helmet.” While I found one that fit, she changed into some jeans, running shoes, and black leather jacket. She pointed at one of the scooters. “That’s yours.” It was something I’d never seen. The bike had two front wheels and one rear. She said, “You’ve ridden this kind before?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never really ridden any kind before.”
She pulled on a helmet, then punched a button, and the black, tinted eye-shield popped up, revealing her eyes. “Don’t worry. Thing almost drives itself.” Her laughter told me she was lying. She pushed a button on the handlebars, it started, and she began pushing it out of the garage. I could still hear her laughing inside her helmet. We idled into the alley. I locked the garage door and then eased to the stop sign of the one-way street. I pulled up alongside her. Traffic moved in front of us, left to right.
“Keep up”—she flipped her shield down and her voice took on a garbled Darth Vader tone—“if you can.” She kicked it into gear. She did not wait for an opening in the traffic. She just flicked her right wrist, launching her forward. The Apollo rocket was slower out of the gate. I followed, turned right, gunned it, and saw her three cars ahead. Steady’s voice echoed: “Don’t let her get you on a scooter…” We turned onto the Champs-Élysées, drove two blocks and then into the circle surrounding the arc. I saw her briefly on the far side where she looked back, blew me a kiss, and then she was gone.
I tried desperately to get out of the circle but people in Paris don’t drive like me so I made three trips around cussing the absence of streetlights. Growing dizzy on the fourth lap, I gunned
it, darted right, and popped up on the curb in front of a café after nearly getting crushed by a bus with a loud horn. A group of kids cussed me and gave me the finger. I’d interrupted their smoke. I parked the bike, dropped my helmet on the ground, and sat at a table. When the server spoke to me in words I didn’t understand, I said the only European-sounding thing I could think of that might result in something to drink. “Cappuccino?”
Halfway through a great cup of coffee, she appeared, screen up. “What happened?”
I pointed at the spaghetti-intersection of cars circling the arc. “That.”
Darth Vader again. “Come on, rookie.”
We spent the day zooming in and out of traffic and the only reason I kept up with her was because she held back. She could have left me at will. At one point she said, “There’s no better way to see the city.” I’m not sure about that but we did see a good bit of it.
She drove me through what turned out to be the Paris Flea Market—largest of its kind in the world. Hundreds, even thousands, of vendors, the market is not measured in square feet, but square blocks, and it is larger than some towns I’ve seen. She pulled to the side. “Gypsies started this. A share shop of sorts. Grew out of the idea that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Since then, it’s grown. Some of the world’s best antiques are right here. I’ve been coming here for ten years or so. Whenever I bought a new house, I’d walk through, buy everything I wanted, fill a shipping container or two, and then ship it to the new house where it’d be waiting on me when I arrived. Expensive, but”—she smiled—“fun. Used to drive my designers nuts, but”—a shrug—“I figured I was paying them so it was their job to figure out how it all fit together.”